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It seems kind of impossible to me for that to be the whole story. I mean, I totally buy that it doesn't matter how competent or incompetent a cook you are in t

It seems kind of impossible to me for that to be the whole story. I mean, I totally buy that it doesn't matter how competent or incompetent a cook you are in terms of assembling McDonald's meals, but there are a lot of axes that employees can vary on: 1. Speed. Employees are going to be better or worse at turning orders quickly, and I can't see how good preparation from the corporate overlords can entirely compensate for this. 2. Graft/Wastage/Slackery. If your employees steal from you, that's going to affect your bottom line real fast. If they're dropping burgers on the floor all the time, that's a big deal. If they are chatting with each other instead of serving your customers, that's a big deal. 3. Customer Service. It has traditionally been the case that a bright smile, eye contact, and polite language has seen some reward among food service workers, and again it doesn't seem possible that McDonald's has figured out how to make all employees great at this. I would be provisionally ready to believe that the combination of corporate work to provide a simplified work experience plus a slack labor market has created a situation where there's a glut of potential fast food workers who are somewhere between the 60th and 99th percentile in worker quality, and the difference between 60th and 99th percentile is small enough that it doesn't warrant paying a higher wage.

jacalata 13y ago
Well, where I worked they solved a lot of it with literally constant supervision and feedback by managers - like 'hey Jane, smile more! Tom, don't just stand there, wipe that bench again. And again, if you have nothing else to do.' That cuts stealing and slacking down pretty fast. Customer service - pretty clear scripts, constant reminders to smile, warnings about mystery shoppers (and actual mystery shoppers), to keep you focusing on it. A three part diagram of something like 'hello - SMILE - can I take your order please?' on each register. Speed - yea, I guess there's a few clumsy workers who just aren't going to be able to do it, but it's like a factory line - a small set of tasks that you pretty much memorize then do over and over. In very busy times where every second counts, you'd put the slightly faster people on the register and have about two runners for each three registers to actually bring the food, which is simpler. I guess there must have been a reasonable availability of workers behind this, because all the pressure was based on 'or you'll be fired'. Or they just relied on us taking them seriously - the city was at about 4% official unemployment (Brisbane, 2006), so it can't have been that bad a glut.
- aetherson 13y ago
  Yeah, not at all intending to discount your experience, but as you point out, something there seems off. If it's a full employment market, constant threats of firing don't seem like they could possibly have had much in the way of teeth. For really bad employees, certainly -- but if Jane the fry girl is working at about 85% of the capacity that you want her to, firing her and suffering at 0% of the capacity doesn't seem like an improvement.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    yea, in hindsight it does seem weird. Perhaps they were relying on the attractiveness of the job circumstances overall (great location near the university and a bunch of high schools, reasonably flexible shift times, not really difficult)? Or perhaps that unemployment rate doesn't reflect the actual number of teenagers willing to work but not really looking. I quit, personally, when my schedule got screwed around at the last minute. They seemed kind of shocked.

jacalata 13y ago

Well, where I worked they solved a lot of it with literally constant supervision and feedback by managers - like 'hey Jane, smile more! Tom, don't just stand there, wipe that bench again. And again, if you have nothing else to do.' That cuts stealing and slacking down pretty fast. Customer service - pretty clear scripts, constant reminders to smile, warnings about mystery shoppers (and actual mystery shoppers), to keep you focusing on it. A three part diagram of something like 'hello - SMILE - can I take your order please?' on each register. Speed - yea, I guess there's a few clumsy workers who just aren't going to be able to do it, but it's like a factory line - a small set of tasks that you pretty much memorize then do over and over. In very busy times where every second counts, you'd put the slightly faster people on the register and have about two runners for each three registers to actually bring the food, which is simpler. I guess there must have been a reasonable availability of workers behind this, because all the pressure was based on 'or you'll be fired'. Or they just relied on us taking them seriously - the city was at about 4% official unemployment (Brisbane, 2006), so it can't have been that bad a glut.

aetherson 13y ago
Yeah, not at all intending to discount your experience, but as you point out, something there seems off. If it's a full employment market, constant threats of firing don't seem like they could possibly have had much in the way of teeth. For really bad employees, certainly -- but if Jane the fry girl is working at about 85% of the capacity that you want her to, firing her and suffering at 0% of the capacity doesn't seem like an improvement.
- jacalata 13y ago
  yea, in hindsight it does seem weird. Perhaps they were relying on the attractiveness of the job circumstances overall (great location near the university and a bunch of high schools, reasonably flexible shift times, not really difficult)? Or perhaps that unemployment rate doesn't reflect the actual number of teenagers willing to work but not really looking. I quit, personally, when my schedule got screwed around at the last minute. They seemed kind of shocked.